The Russian invasion of Ukraine began 904 days ago. Ukrainian defenses shot down 29 enemy Shahed drones on the night from Wednesday to Thursday, Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk reported. According to Ukrainian analysts of the DeepState project, Russian forces are advancing in the Donetsk region, where they have captured two more villages. Since the beginning of the Ukrainian offensive in Kursk region, more than a thousand Russians have been reported missing, the independent Russian-language website The Moscow Times reported. Here's what happened in and around Ukraine over the past 24 hours.
> On the night from Wednesday to Thursday, Russian forces attacked Ukraine using three Kh-59 guided missiles and 29 Shahed drones. All enemy drones were destroyed, Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk said in a post on Telegram.
The drones were shot down over the Mykolaiv, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Kherson, Zaporizhia, Sumy, Chernihiv and Kyiv regions. Oleshchuk did not specify whether Russian Kh-59 missiles were also shot down.
> Russian occupiers have increased their activity on the left bank of the Dnieper in the Kherson region, said Dmytro Lykhovyi, spokesman for the Tavria military operational group. “We repelled seven (enemy) attacks on the bridgehead on the left bank of the Dnieper in the Kherson region, north of the village of Krynki, where our units moved to new positions. The enemy has become more active there,” Lykhovyi said.
> According to Ukrainian analysts of the DeepState project, who monitor the situation on the front, Russian forces are advancing in the Donetsk region, where they have captured two more villages.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported that in the Pokrov sector of the Donetsk region, where the Russian military has concentrated its main attacks, combat clashes have taken place over the past 24 hours.
> Minister of Foreign Affairs Radoslaw Sikorski said that the entry of Ukrainian troops into the western Russia strengthened Kiev's position and it looks like Moscow is forced to withdraw its forces from eastern Ukraine.
> The Ukrainian attack on Kursk region was a surprise for the Russian sidebut its goal is not to occupy this area, it is primarily about maintaining morale in the Ukrainian army – said General Maciej Klisz, Operational Commander of the Armed Forces Branches, in “Fakty po Faktach” on TVN24. He added that “the Ukrainians took advantage of a good moment”.
The Ukrainian army does not slow down the offensive in Kursk regionTVN24, Reuters
> Since Ukrainian forces entered Kursk Oblast, more than a thousand Russians have been reported missing to organizations searching for the missing. These are local residents, reported the independent Russian-language website The Moscow Times, citing the organization Lisa Alert, which has been helping in the search for a dozen or so years.
Evacuation of residents of Kursk Oblast PAP/EPA
> Ukraine has carried out its largest ever drone attack on four Russian military airports, Reuters reported, citing a source in the Ukrainian security forces. Meanwhile, Volodymyr Zelensky announced that the Ukrainian army was advancing in the Kursk region and had taken more than a hundred Russian soldiers as prisoners.
> Ukraine will try to keep the territories it has occupied in Russia as a factor in the destabilization of that country and a factor in possible changes in the situation on the front, assessed Ukrainian political scientist Yevhen Mahda.
> We plan to open humanitarian corridors between the Sumy and Kursk regions in order to evacuate civilians both towards Ukraine and the Russian Federation, said Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.
PAP, Ukrayinska Pravda, NV, DeepState
Main image source: PAP/EPA